Sapphire HD4650 512MB Overclock Edition Review

Introduction:

These days when you think video card you think high end gaming right? Well first, not everyone is a gamer and not every card is built for that purpose. Should someone who only uses their computer for media or casual internet usage spend hundreds of dollars on a blazing fast graphics card? On the other hand you want cutting edge technology available to you without the huge expense right. Well ATI has recently released their Hd 4600 line of cards aimed at just that group of people. It is targeted at the mainstream user who might game casually on not so extreme settings but like to kick back and watch a high definition movie on their down time. The HD 4650 is based off of the 55nm RV730 GPU, which is the same GPU used it it's bigger brother the HD 4670, and has 320 stream processors and 512MB of memory.

Sapphire takes their HD 4650 a step further and overclocks it to produce even more power to give you that boost you need when it is most critical. With many years of proven design Sapphire takes their knowledge in graphics cards to improve this card to the best it can be. This card comes packed with enought features to allow you to get the most out of your system while not breaking the bank to do so. With DirectX 10.1 and shader model 4.0 you will not have to upgrade this card for some time to come.

Closer Look:

The Sapphire HD 4650 comes packaged in a nice small box so there is not a lot of bulk and extra weight. The package features a Sapphire mascot on the front with some logos of highlight features. On the back they highlight more features and include a blurb about playing the "Vista" way. Sapphire has always been good about including the system requirements and what connections are available on the card which are on the left side of the package for easy checking.

One thing I have always admired with Sapphire graphics cards is they never leave you without an accessory you need when setting up your system. Usually anything and everything is included for your setup. Included in the box with the Sapphire HD 4650 is the manual, driver CD, component video dongle, S-Video dongle, DVI to VGA adapter, and a DVI to HDMI adapter.

Now that the Sapphire HD 4650 is out of the box let's take a better look up close.